Artist Ram Kumar’s Gaitonde sells at Christies London

Gaitonde’s Untitled 1975 work belonging to Ram Kumar the veteran artist sold at Christies yesterday for $ 2,014,635 at the South Asian Modern +contemporary Art Auction. It sold for three times its estimate. Christies London had a beautiful note of nostalgia to share with art lovers. Gaitonde and Ram Kumar first met in Bombay in the early 1950s through the artist and gallerist Bal Chhabda, who was a common friend. Although Kumar was living in Delhi following his return from France, he frequently travelled to Bombay to exhibit his work at the Alliance Française, once even moving his family to the city for six months in 1954. Gaitonde, too, would travel to Delhi for his exhibitions at Kumar Art Gallery, and the two continued to meet, developing a close friendship based on mutual respect that would last till Gaitonde passed away in 2001.

Over the next two decades the two artists met frequently, even though they lived in different cities, often along with others like Tyeb Mehta, Krishen Khanna and Maqbool Fida Husain. When Gaitonde, Husain and Mehta set up studios at the Bhulabhai Memorial Institute in Bombay with several other artists, Kumar remembers spending a lot of time with them there. Around the same time, in 1957, Gaitonde and Kumar collaborated with Husain and Mehta to establish the short-lived artists’ collective, Shilalekh, and produced a series of lithographs together so that their work could reach wider audiences.

Ram Kumar recalls that even in the 1950s Gaitonde was completely sure of himself and his work, inspiring a great deal of confidence in him and in many other artists. Although he did not talk about his work and was not directly associated with any particular group of artists, he was respected by everyone in the art world. It was commonly said that when artists like Syed Haider Raza visited Bombay, they would first pay their respects at Mahatma Gandhi’s samadhi or memorial and then at Gaitonde’s door!

When Gaitonde moved to a barsati in the Jangpura neighbourhood of Delhi in 1972, the two became neighbours as well. At least once a week, Kumar would stop by Gaitonde’s house on his way to buy groceries in the evening. A writer as well as an artist, Kumar would regale Gaitonde with stories of the art community, which the latter stood apart from but enjoyed hearing about, and of his many travels around the world. As Kumar was the only one in the neighbourhood with a phone, he also found himself conveying news and messages to and from his friend’s house. Often, the two would go to the cinema together or to the India International Centre to watch obscure French films.

Along with his wife Vimla, Kumar took great care of Gaitonde in Delhi. Gaitonde was very fond of Vimla, although he categorically forbade her to clean his messy flat. Every day, she would ensure a box of daal or lentils would be sent to him from the Kumar household so that he had soft food to eat given his stubborn refusal to get dentures! Kumar also remembers the two of them buying a colour television for Gaitonde along with Husain and Arun Vadehra, so that he could replace the old box set he used to keep switched on all day long.

Over the many years of their friendship Ram Kumar also made sure Gaitonde was financially stable when he needed it the most. Apart from arranging various grants for him, Kumar also wrote and spoke on Gaitonde’s behalf as a member of the jury for the Madhya Pradesh Kalidas Samman art award in 1988-89. Gaitonde won the award, and with its substantial funds was able to resume working on canvas after a debilitating accident he suffered a few years earlier.

In the same spirit, Kumar bought this painting (lot 5) from Gaitonde at an exhibition in Delhi in the mid-1970s. After Kumar’s first choice of paintings from the show was requested by Tom Keehn, their friend and the American representative of the Rockefeller Fund in India, he gave it up and picked this luminous canvas from 1975. For more than forty years, Ram Kumar proudly hung this painting in his home, a mark of the high regards in which he held Gaitonde, and his deep respect for the latter’s artistic integrity and uncompromising dedication to his work.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Author

Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 29 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She believes that art is a progressive sojourn. And there are those who are taught and those who are self taught. She herself had learnt by looking at the best shows in Washington D.C. and New York. And life is about learning and growing...

Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 29 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She b. . .

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Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 29 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She believes that art is a progressive sojourn. And there are those who are taught and those who are self taught. She herself had learnt by looking at the best shows in Washington D.C. and New York. And life is about learning and growing...

Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 29 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She b. . .